Which book are you reading currently? #7

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Just finished Peter David's Tong Lashing, the last part in his Apropros trilogy. Awesome, awesome trilogy, I recommend it heartily. Sucks to be him though. I felt pretty bad for him..

Anyway, due to a friend's insistence, I'm going to start The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand tomorrow.

 

Finally reading 'the bonehunters' by erickson, and so far I have to rate it the least of the series. Hopefully it picks up after page 660, only 430 to go

 

On no! I should be receiveing this one next week. It's certainly disappointing to hear that it's not as good as the others.

 

Finished C.S. Friedman's Black Sun Rising, now most of the way through her When True Night Falls.

Above par trilogy, so far, but not up to the level of Bakker, Erikson, Martin, Hobb, etc.

 

@Apeman & Chandos:

Don't worry. As usual with Ericson's books 'The Bonehunters' is best at the end.
And not all of them can be as good as 'Memories of Ice'.


I just finished 'Ysabel' by Guy Gavriel Kay.

It's a fascinating but 'quiet' fantasy novel set in modern France and loosely connected to his Fionavar triology.
And it's in total contrast to Ericson and the like. For instance just 400 pages to tell the whole story

[ September 09, 2007, 17:46: Message edited by: Latro ]

 

Erikson have spoilt his readers by making every book better than the last, if for instance the two latest ones arent exactly as brilliant as some of the previous ones it is easy to get disapointed. You can however only be disapointed if you compare Erikson to Erikson, compare it to anything else and it is still completely awesome.

 

I dunno, Joa, I think I can categorically state that Bakker beats the crap out of Erikson; but then, Bakker beats the crap out of everybody. Best epic fantasy I've read, bar none.

Finished Friedman's Coldfire trilogy, and it was solid, if a bit repetitive.

Now reading Steph Swainston's The Year of Our War, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

 

I have heard another guy say that and I just dont see it. I find Bakker slightly above average but quite a bit below Erikson and Martin. Bakker lacks the grandeur and the complexity of those two and just feels a bit, well, shallow and empty.

Oh Amaster, I picked up those books as well at the library. Havent started reading them yet but I will soon. Keep me updated.

[ September 10, 2007, 01:11: Message edited by: joacqin ]

 

Shallow? O.o

Don't think I've heard that complaint before (and I've heard quite a few, believe me). Mind elaborating?

Swainston's book...man, it pissed me off for the first 100 pages or so. The prose was grating. The dialogue was stilted. The characters were retards.

But the writing's inconsistent, so the stilted dialogue and grating prose seem to have gone away by the 200 page mark. The characters are still retards, but I can live with it. I seem to be liking this book in spite of myself, but I'm not at all sure I'll pick up the rest of the series. I imagine my mind will be made up once I finish this one.

 

I finished Forest Mage on the plane trip over to Beijing. It picked up a bit in the second half but I really didn't like it.

I have started on the Grantville Gazette which I downloaded from the Baen free library. It is a collection of short stories in the 1632 universe. So far they have been decent but nothing special.

 

It is just the scope that I find lacking, the relative few characters and the fact that despite all the effort Bakker has put into it I just dont find myself feeling for any of the main characters. Bakker just dont manage, despite trying very very hard, to create characters you really feel for.

 

House of serpents by Lisa Smedman. Those Yuan-ti are creepy.

 

Outbound Flight by Timothy Zahn.
More Grand Admiral Thrawn (Mitth'raw'nuruodo), yikes, he's definately one of the best Star Wars villains ever.

 

Finished The Year of Our War. Not gonna bother with the other books in the series.

Started Chris Moriarty's Spin Control. So far, it's better than the first book.

 

Taking a short break from the fountainhead to read "The Game" by Neil Strauss, very entertaining stuff. Hope some of this actually works

 

Watercourse trilogy by Philip Athans. It is forgotten realms, but not as we know it from Salvatore. More story and less combat, almost un forgotten realms like.

 

I finished a bunch of books.

Awesome:
Dune - Frank Herbert
Patriot Acts - Greg Rucka (I think Monty would like this one)

Very good:
Pushing Ice - Alastair Reynolds

Good:
Spin Control - Chris Moriarty. Better than the first.
Elantris - Brandon Sanderson. Overhyped, but worth reading

Above average:
Ophiuchi Hotline - John Varley (rough around the edges)

meh:
Working for the Devil - Lilith Saintcrow. Tthink Shadowrun, but lame. In fact, the Shadowrun novels were better than this was. Not a good sign.
Talyn - Holly Lisle. Utterly unbelievable worldbuilding (medieval representative democracies? Sexual egalitarianism? Egalitarianism, period?) and plot (oh, okay, we'll totally disband our entire military after 300 years of war. What could go wrong?).

Holy crap. It's only been 9 days?

I need to read less.

 

Steven Erikson - The Bonehunters.

 

Yeah, I started the Bonehunters, but realized about 30 pages in that I needed to reread House of Chains, and maybe Deadhouse Gates as well. So I put it off.